Resources: Taking Steps to Become a White Accomplice

(This is a working document.)

I’ve composed this document as a resource for peers, especially white peers, who want to make a difference, but don’t necessarily know how. You may feel helpless. You may fear overstepping. You may not even know which direction to step in.

It’s important that you know: your contribution to this fight is essential for change to be made, for we live in a nation that often tunes out the voices of BIPOC. White silence is white violence; by not speaking up in times of injustice, you are only allowing the issue to persist.

Educate yourself. Acknowledge your privilege. Listen to the voices of BIPOC. Use your privilege and speak out.

Be more than an ally... be an accomplice.

  • Allies stay educated, engaged, and support members of marginalized groups. This is great, however if everyone is an ally, who’s going to fight for change? Accomplices take allyship a step further, by taking action. They work alongside marginalized groups to dismantle the structures supporting oppressive systems. However, they allow BIPOC to lead.

Donate:

Sign Petitions:

Demand Action:

Educate Yourself:

Being an Ally v. Accomplice:

        How to Be An Ally:

        Microaggressions:

White Privilege: Acknowledge Your Privilege!

        Hidden Biases:

        Anti Racism:

Colorblindness = Ignorance

        Racial Injustice On College Campuses

Workshops:

Facilitating Discussions:

Talking About Racism With Kids

For Guardians:

For Educators:

Media Resources:

Podcasts:

Short Videos:

Books:

  • So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo

  • How to Be Less Stupid About Race, Crystal M. Flemming

  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander
  • Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, Paul Kivel

  • Stamped From the Beginning. Ibram X. Kendi

  • Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • Toward the Other America: Anti-Racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter, Chris Crass
  • Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-first Century, Monique W. Morris
  • The Invention of the White Race, Theodore W. Allen
  • How Does It Feel To Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, Moustafa Bayoumi
  • The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein

  • The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics, Revised and Expanded Edition, George Lipsitz

  • How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood, Jim Grimsley
  • Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, Douglas A. Blackmon
  • Understanding and Dismantling Racism: The Twenty-First Century Challenge to White America, Joseph Barndt
  • Tears We Cannot Stop, Michael Eric Dyson
  • Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism and History, Vron Ware & Mikki Kendall
  • Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Beverly Daniel Tatum
  • They Can’t Kill Us All, Wesley Lowery
  • Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine
  • Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Inequality in America, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
  • White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, Carol Anderson

  • How to be An Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi

  • Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson
  • Me and White Supremacy, Layla F. Saad
  • An Antiracist Reading List
  • So You Want to Be Woke: A Reading Guide for White People
  • Essential Black History Books | Anti-Racist Reading List
  • An Essential Reading Guide For Fighting Racism

Documentaries (about black history and racism in the U.S.):

  • 13th
  • I Am Not Your Negro
  • 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets (HBO)
  • Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra Bland (HBO)
  • Baltimore Rising (HBO)
  • Traffic Stop (HBO)
  • True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality (HBO)
  • Crime + Punishment (Hulu)
  • The Central Park Five
  • The Loving Story (HBO)
  • The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson
  • Whose Streets
  • Strong Island
  • LA 92
  • Freedom Riders
  • Slavery By ANother Name (Kanopy)
  • The Rape of Recy Taylor (tw: discussion of rape and sexual assault)
  • Let it Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992
  • Against All Odds
  • Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement
  • I Am Somebody

Movies:

  • Just Mercy (Based on the book by Bryan Stevenson)
  • Get Out
  • Fruitvale Station (Based on the murder of Oscar Grant)
  • Malcolm X
  • Blackkklansman
  • The Hate You Give
  • Detroit
  • Hidden Figures
  • Selma
  • Remember the Titans

TV Shows:

  • When They See Us (Netflix)
  • America to Me (Starz)
  • Dear White People

Terms to Know:

Ally: A person who commits to actively making an effort to acknowledge their privileges and working  with oppressed groups in their struggle for justice. Privileges based on gender, social class, race, sexual identity,etc. Allies work to end all forms of oppression, even those from which they benefit.

  • Example: Men working to close the wage gap, despite being benefited by it.

Anti Racism: The individual approach of opposing racism through advocating for political, economic, and social changes. This is done in opposition to individual behaviors and impacts.

  • Example: Taking action when a coworker makes a racist comment.

Bias: “Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.” (source)

Bigotry: “An intolerant prejudice which glorifies one’s own for up and denigrates members of other groups.”

Discrimination: Unequal treatment based upon a person’s race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, ability, religion,etc.

Implicit Bias: Negative associations we don’t realize we have. Without knowing it, we often express our implicit biases. Our actions speak louder than words– even those we don’t notice. Despite claiming to not be bias, if you hold negative associations, it’s likely you're unknowingly expressing them.

Institutional Racism: Policies and practices within an institution that create varied outcomes for different groups. They create advantages for whites, despite not specifically mentioning a racial group. Directly negatively impacts people of color.

  • Example: Crack v. Cocaine sentencing disparities ( Learn more here). Sanctioning of hazardous waste sites in communities of color ( Learn more here).

Internalized Racism: When racially marginalized populations accept the negative beliefs and stereotypes society places on them. (Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000, p. 255; Taylor & Grundy, 1996).

Interpersonal Racism: When we bring our private (racist) beliefs into our interactions with others. Occurs between individuals.

  • Example: Public displays of prejudice, hate, bias, and bigotry.

Intersectionality: "Intersectionality is simply a prism to see the interactive effects of various forms of discrimination and disempowerment. It looks at the way that racism, many times, interacts with patriarchy, heterosexism, classism, xenophobia — seeing that the overlapping vulnerabilities created by these systems actually create specific kinds of challenges.” – Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Microaggressions: The everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.

  • Examples: “ I don’t see color” I don’t see color,” “What are you?,” “I’m not racist, I have a friend who’s___”, “All Lives Matter”.

People of Color: Collective term that refers to non-White racial groups. DO NOT USE: “colored people”

Racial Equity:

source

White Fragility: “A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable [for white people], triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.” Robin DiAngelo

White Privilege: Refers to the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

  • White privilege DOES NOT mean that white people don't experience struggles. It means that they don’t experience struggles because of their race.

White Supremacy:

  • “Characterizes various belief systems central to which are one or more of the following key tenets: 1) whites should have dominance over people of other backgrounds, especially where they may co-exist; 2) whites should live by themselves in a whites-only society; 3) white people have their own "culture" that is superior to other cultures; 4) white people are genetically superior to other people. As a full-fledged ideology, white supremacy is far more encompassing than simple racism or bigotry. Most white supremacists today further believe that the white race is in danger of extinction due to a rising “flood” of non-whites, who are controlled and manipulated by Jews, and that imminent action is needed to “save” the white race.” (source)

Definitions gathered and paraphrased from https://www.racialequitytools.com